Worcester, St John in Bedwardine
St John in Bedwardine, the Parish Church of St Johns, a suburb of Worcester, is easy to find. It is situated on the South side of the Bromyard Road (A44) in the middle of St John's.
I rang in this tower on Saturday 9th October 2004 as part of a tour in 2004.
I am very familiar with the church as I lived in St. Johns for seven years as a teenager though I had never been in the bell tower. This is a big church and a spiral staircase leads up to the ringing area that is large, spacious and comfortably furnished. I started by ringing up #6 which was one of the original bells cast by T. Mears in 1816 and weighed "9-0-20" [1028lb or 466kg] followed by some call changes. The next bell I rang was #7, this was one of the newer bells, we rang some call changes and spent a long time trying to get Queens but it never sounded right. Perhaps the different speed of 8 bells had an effect, perhaps it was the end of a long days ringing. I ended up ringing down #4.
The Bells
Until 1930 the tower had only 6 bells when two more were added. The original set of 6 were cast by T. Mears in 1816 and are now bells #3-#8. The two new bells were cast by John Taylor in 1930 and were installed as #1 and #2.
Dove's Guide includes details of the bells at St John in Bedwardine with more information provided by the Worcestershire & Districts Change Ringing Association.
Bell | Note | Diameter | Weight |
---|---|---|---|
1 | F | 5-0-24 | |
2 | E | 5-2-26 | |
3 | D | 6-1-6 | |
4 | C | 6-3-16 | |
5 | B♭ | 7-3-19 | |
6 | F | 9-0-20 | |
7 | F | 10-3-23 | |
Tenor | F | 15-1-16 |